


Depth Perception

by dearygirl



Category: Community
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-12
Updated: 2013-04-11
Packaged: 2017-12-08 05:55:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/757841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearygirl/pseuds/dearygirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Annie and Jeff’s relationship – what the group sees, and more importantly, what they don’t. Written after S1.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_It’s about 11:30 on a Thursday night, near the end of their second year at Greendale, when it finally happens._

 

 _Troy and Abed are walking back to the campus after filming scenes for their reenactment of Kickpuncher 4: Rise of the Punchkickers and it’s  a little eerie because everything is quiet in the late hour. The parking lot is almost completely empty but they spot Jeff’s Lexus, lit by a circle of light from the nearby streetlamp. They’re about to wonder out loud why Jeff, of all people, would be there so late but then there are voices and there he is, walking through the parking lot. He’s got a girl with him and when they reach the car he presses her up against it and she giggles and then falls silent - so_ clearly  _this isn’t just some kind of friend thing._

_Which is weird because… the girl is_ Annie _._

_Hidden in the shadows, Troy’s mouth drops open and Abed’s eyebrows knit together in surprise and they both slowly turn their heads to look at each other._

_“_ Pierce _was right.”_

 

_~*~*~*~_

 

They see Annie crying in the women’s room and later they see her sitting with Jeff at the pep rally. But they didn’t hear the apology, they didn’t see the way he pulled her to him instinctively when she was frightened, or the way she tucked her hand into the crook of his arm as he ushered her through the door of the gym with a little bow.

 

They see the kiss, and Jeff’s dazed look – and they maybe stop to wonder.

 

But they didn’t see the look that passed between them at the study table or the awkward attempt at a hug or the way Jeff bolted from the room. They didn’t feel the pressure of Jeff’s hands on her hips or see the reluctant way they turned away from each other at the end of the night. And no one stopped in the parking lot long enough to notice Jeff sitting in his car, banging his head against the steering wheel and muttering obscenities under his breath.

 

_“Dammit, dammit, dammit.”_

 

Annie’s debate winning techniques are never mentioned and everyone’s too distracted with the extra Spanish work or chasing a mouse around campus or preparing an oral presentation, to connect the dots to a few weeks later when Annie is suddenly desperate at the idea of Jeff failing Spanish.

 

Noticed or not, Annie and Jeff continue falling into each other’s wake and the more time they spend together the more they start to make these almost insignificant considerations for each other - it may seem like they’re just two friends walking down the hallway but no one saw the sideways smile he gave her when she caught up with him after class or how he automatically shortened his steps to match hers.

 

If Jeff seems to be changing or unwinding, it’s credited to his first adult relationship in years and being a part of this little oddball community and maybe having to really work for something. Everyone will continue to assume these things because no one’s around to see the way he immediately concedes to do her a favor, the way he can’t seem to say no, the fact that her opinion is really starting to matter in the way that Italian faucets and a flashy car used to matter.

 

And if Annie seems to be less of a robot, it’s believed to be the result of dating a tree-hugging hippy and having real live friends who don’t care about all those past mistakes. So no one thinks twice when she enrolls in the blow-off class that  _Jeff_  is taking instead of Sailing with Troy. And they definitely don’t notice when she starts wearing longer pencil skirts and silk blouses and heels that are an inch higher than normal.

 

It’s just sort of happens that they seem to intensify this emotion and,  _oh everything_ , in each other so when he yells at her he’s angrier than usual and when she cries she’s more intense than usual  - but Jeff gets pissed a lot and Annie’s just an  _intense_  person so no one thinks anything of it. They don’t work it out and connect it to the subtle (increasingly everyday) changes like the fact that Jeff’s eyes now slide over to Annie  _first_  whenever he sits down at the table or how they’re always watching each other for cues or how her smile brightens, just ever so slightly, when he walks into a room.

 

And one day, when he’s trying to chose between two other women, no one sees that it’s Annie he’s talking to, it’s Annie he’s watching across the dance floor, it’s Annie whose unexpected presence fills his body with some kind of  _relief_ after two public and confounding declarations of love.

 

~*~*~*~

 

“Jeff?”

 

“….”

 

“Jeff.”

 

“…”

 

“Jeff?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“We. Umm.”

 

“Okay. Okay.”           

 

They step back from each other, Annie’s eyes searching the ground, her hands twisting nervously in front of her while Jeff just stares at her, a little slack jawed.

 

He closes his eyes and exhales slowly.

 

“Shit.”

 

She looks up, wary. “I’m sorry, I-”

 

“No. I’m-” Jeff cuts off and then they’re just staring at each other again. He shakes his head, “This night really sucks.”

 

At this, Annie suddenly seems to visibly shrink back into herself and Jeff’s eyes widen, “I don’t mean. God, Annie, that was.” He stops again and looks skyward. “Shit.”

 

Students are still milling around, laughing and shouting summer goodbyes, no one noticing the two of them, standing there in the middle of the walkway in awkward silence.

 

 Annie’s eyes trail after a couple walking hand in hand toward the parking lot.

 

“You should go talk to Britta.”

 

“What?”

 

She nods resolutely, but not looking at him. “Go talk to Britta. Or Slater. Or.” She stoops and picks up one of her bags, “You should figure that out.” Finally meeting his eyes, she smiles, “It’s okay.”

 

He squints at her, unsure, “You’re being astoundingly mature about this.”

 

And then she’s giving him the wide  _Disney Princess Doe Eyes Bambi_  look that sort of got him into this in the first place, “I’ve grown up a lot this year.”

 

Jeff’s expression changes and something like a half-smile plays at the corner of his lips, “Yeah.” He draws the word out slowly.

 

Annie picks up her other bag, “Have a good summer Jeff.”

 

She walks away.

_~*~*~*~_

By the time Jeff slinks back into the gym the cops are there and one of the Dalmatians is being led away in handcuffs. Professor Duncan is being tended to by paramedics, his nose gushing blood, Chang laughing nearby.

 

He tries to pull Britta aside quietly but in the ten minutes since he’s been gone her disappointment has turned into fury and pretty soon they’re just yelling at each other.

 

“What kind of asshole just walks away when someone tells him they love him?”

 

“You  _don’t_ love me!”

 

“So?”

 

Somewhere in the middle of this Slater throws her hands up in disgust and storms out.

 

“I knew the whole paintball thing was a mistake.”

 

“What does that even have to do with anything?”

 

“Everything!”

 

And then she slaps him.

 

The second after she does it, Jeff sort of reels back, stunned and there’s a flicker of regret in her eyes but then she turns on her heel and leaves. For a moment everything is quiet and  _everyone’s_  watching him like it’s some kind of riveting television show.

 

 _No one_  sees Annie on the steps of the library with her fingers pressed to her lips.

 

~*~*~*~

 

The next two weeks are all gossip and whispering and drama.

 

Everyone wants to know what Jeff’s going to do and if he’s going to choose between Britta and Slater or go the way of the increasingly cliché “I choose me” scenario and if he does maybe Britta and Slater should just hookup with each other (thanks Pierce) and be done with it. But no one’s really seen Jeff so they don’t know that he’s actually been spending the majority of his time staring at his phone, at Annie’s name in his list of contacts and rolling over words in his head like “can’t” and “shouldn’t” and “don’t.”

 

There’s even more to gossip about when they learn that Annie didn’t go to Delaware after all and they pepper her with questions about why and did Vaughn cry and no, really, seriously, how much did he cry? She evades the questions and they try to tell her about the Tranny Dance drama but she doesn’t seem to want to hear about that either. They assume it’s because she’s just had her heart broken, poor dear, and topics of love are just too hurtful right now. No one knows about the time she’s alternating lately between waiting for the phone to ring and hating herself  _for_ waiting.

 

This isn’t what living in the moment is supposed to be, right? Waiting around for a phone call from a guy who of course _isn’t_  going to call? It’s Jeff after all and if there’s one thing she knows about him (there are a million things she knows about him but she can’t think about those right now) it’s that he does avoidance really well. So she never actually believes he’ll call but she feels nervous and twitchy every time her phone rings.

 

She’s little bit wrong about the avoidance thing though.

 

He ends up apologizing to Britta.

 

“He was completely drunk and he was talking about kisses that didn’t mean anything and how he’s really  _really_  sorry and how he wants to be my friend and he kept saying, ‘I really do value you and you’re not just a hot blonde anymore.’ Which is nice I guess but it’s weird. It was like he was trying to open up to me and talk about feelings and that’s weird right? So I told him everything was fine. Just to make him stop. And it  _is_  fine. Really. Drunk, emotional Jeff was sort of like some kind of emergency shut off valve to my attraction to him.”

 

Britta relates this to Shirley, who immediately turns around and calls everyone else, including Annie.

 

“Oh. Good.”

 

Annie hopes she sounded sufficiently surprised and she thinks about the text message she received earlier (much earlier – like, woke her from her sleep at 3:00 in the morning, kind of earlier).

 

It was from Jeff. Of course.

 

“talked to Britta, everything okay.”

 

Six hours later when she’s actually awake and this is clearly not a dream she decides to just respond with a happy face emoticon and then they  _both_  sit around wondering what “okay” means while everyone else just breaths a sigh of relief at another averted crisis.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Annie starts working at a local bookstore and Jeff is just right down the street doing some work for a law firm and the entire group knows these two bits of information but they don’t know about the day Jeff stops by the store with the excuse of looking for some law book for his boss.

 

She sees him walk in, all swagger and sunglasses and sleeves rolled up his forearms, and has to tamp down the sudden urge to duck and cover under the information desk.

 

“Hey.”

 

“Oh. Hi. Um.”

 

But he’s smiling, so maybe “okay” really just means  _normal_  and  _can we go back to the way things were?_

 

Her hands only shake slightly when she types the name of the book he’s looking for into the computer database and if he notices he doesn’t say anything.

 

When he stops by a couple days later to see if she wants to go to lunch it really does feel like normal, like something friends do and it doesn’t feel like lying when she tells Britta and Shirley that she and Jeff sometimes meet for lunch - no one has any reason to believe that it’s anything more than that.

 

Except, they don’t see the way Jeff and Annie’s eyes will meet and hold across the table and suddenly she can’t eat anything because her stomach feels all weird and tumbly or the fact the he didn’t even notice that time the waitress left her number on the receipt or that sometimes when they’re leaving the restaurant Annie will feel the light press of his hand at her lower back.

 

It’s nothing, it’s friendship, it’s Jeff, it’s Annie, it’s normal – these are the things everyone else believes, so. It must be true.

 

And when they’re with everyone else, it’s easier to pretend because there are these five other people to play off of and Annie can gossip with Shirley and Jeff can banter with Britta and together they can all try to figure out  _whatever_  it is that Troy and Abed are doing in a given moment.

 

They spend half the summer at Pierce’s mansion and it’s kind of perfect because he’s got a swimming pool and an in-home theater room that basically makes Abed weep tears of joy when he first sees it. He and Troy are constantly marathoning movies like “Mega Piranha” and “Giant Octopus vs. Mega Shark” and sometimes they’re joined by any combination of the rest of the group.

 

Everyone’s there the night Annie and Jeff end up next to each other on the couch but it doesn’t seem to mean anything that they start the movie both pressed into opposite arm rests, that sometime later a bowl of popcorn spills and they hastily clean it up but then maybe aren’t sitting quite as far away from each other afterwards.

 

No one notices that halfway through the movie they both stop saying anything.

 

His hand ends up resting on her thigh (they were sitting close enough together and his hand had no other place to go really and it just ends up settling there and  _god_ , she almost  _whimpers_  when his thumb starts brushing back and forth along the bare skin) and their shoulders are pressed together and they’re both so busy wanting and not wanting it to be more that they have no idea what’s happening on the screen in front of them.

 

At the end of the night everyone says goodbye and drives away in separate cars, in separate directions, and there’s no consideration for the possibility that Annie will be lying in bed, at almost one o’clock in the morning, composing and deleting texts like some kind of nervous tick. When she does finally push “send” on the carefully worded and intricate “I had fun tonight” she stares at the screen for a moment in horror because now it’s out there and  _you can’t take that back_  and she drops her head to the pillow and groans.

 

But then her phone chimes and she actually feels that stupid, simple little noise low in her stomach.

 

“me too”

 

She exhales slowly, shakily, and her fingers trace over the keypad as she runs through the millions of possible responses.

 

_Why?_

_What does all this mean?_

_What are you looking for Jeff Winger?_

 

 _What are you wearing?_  (This one makes her giggle, and then stray toward actual wondering).

 

 _Can I come over?_  ( _This_  one makes everything go hazy for a second and she has to a take a shuddering breath before turning off her phone and throwing it across the room in terror).

 

No, she absolutely cannot be counted on to make rational texting decisions right now.

 

As she curls herself into her pillow she thinks about him lying in bed, thinking about her, and all of it makes her simultaneously want to scream in frustration and dance around the room in giddy schoolgirl-like joy.

 

~*~*~*~*

 

Annie’s different and everyone’s noticed. There’s something braver there, something bold. She’s always been adamant and defiant but the “formidable face” was always a bit like a little girl playing dress up, and now it’s just real. And maybe that’s what happens after someone breaks up with a shoeless hackey-sack player, maybe she’s been strengthened by this tragic lost love.

 

Or maybe it’s wearing her new bikini and floating on her back in the pool, her hair fanning out around her like a halo. And even though  _he’s_  leaning back in a lounge chair and he’s got sunglasses on and he’s talking to Shirley, she can feel his eyes on her, the way they trace her movement as she drifts over the water. It makes her skin feel hot in a way that has nothing to do with the midday summer sun.

 

Or maybe it’s the sound of her friends laughing around a fire pit, roasting marshmallows and tossing good-natured insults back and forth as red embers glow and crack and send curls of smoke into the night sky.

 

Maybe.

 

(And Jeff’s different too – he spent the entire summer watching movies with Abed and Troy, and eating lunch with Annie and teasing Britta and gossiping with Shirley and occasionally sharing a bottle of scotch with Pierce and he can’t even lie and say he hated it.)

 

~*~*~*~

 

It’s the last weekend before school starts again and they’ve all holed themselves up at Pierce’s, getting drunk and daring each other to do increasingly unrecognizable renditions of Lady Gaga songs and ordering pizza so many times that they’ve learned the delivery boy’s name and all shout “Lenny!” every time he shows up at the door. When they sober up they go swimming and play volleyball until someone mentions Greendale again and it’s time to start in on another bottle of vodka. They watch the series that Abed’s been working on over the summer,  _Greendale Dreamin’,_  and it’s actually pretty good and Britta ends up laughing so hard that she pees her pants.

 

It’s sometime late in the afternoon on Sunday and Troy’s on a raft in the pool, half asleep and turning in lazy circles over the water while Abed and Britta are spooned up on a lounge chair and Shirley sings along softly to the oldies station that’s playing over the outdoor sound system. Pierce is sitting with his legs in the water, recounting the tale of a “raven haired beauty” that caught his eye during the tumultuous summer of ’69 (ahem ’89) even though no one’s really listening.

 

Annie wanders around the house aimlessly and she can’t even tell if she’s drunk or sober anymore but Pierce’s house is really big and she just wants to walk around trailing her fingers over everything because it seems like the thing to do. At the end of one hallway is what Pierce has termed “the man cave” which doesn’t make a lot of sense because he lives alone so, basically the entire place is one big bachelor’s pad. But this room has a pool table and a fully stocked bar, a flat screen TV and a Playstation console. And sometimes Annie just feels really sad for Pierce.

 

Jeff’s in there racking a new game of pool, and she’s pretty sure she had known where he’d be, so it’s probably pretty inevitable that she’d end up there too.

 

He smiles and holds out a pool cue so she shrugs, “Teach me?”

 

“Annie.” He’s trying to look incredulous but he’s probably drunk too and his words come out softer than he means. “The game of pool is not something that can be taught. It’s something you just know. In here.” He pats his chest.

 

“Jeff, you weren’t as cool in high school as you might like us to believe, were you?”

 

He smiles, laughs, “Fine I’ll teach you.”

 

It’s really not some kind of come-on, she’s never played pool before, but as Jeff leans over her and shows her how to hold the cue between her fingers, she’s really glad that she asked. She can feel so acutely every point in her body he’s pressed against and how is it that he’s always so warm and solid?

 

This wave of, she’s not even sure what it is, crashes over her and she just really wants to kiss him again. She  _needs_  to kiss him again.

 

When he stands up she moves with him and turns around so that she stays in his arms. Her forehead is pressed lightly into his chest and she runs her fingers along the hem of his shirt.

 

“Annie.” There’s a warning in his tone.

 

She finally looks up and she’s barefoot so he’s just too tall and she’s the kind of drunk where everything’s a little tilty so she braces her hands on the pool table behind her and pulls herself up to sit on top, tries not to look nervous as she raises an eyebrow. His eyes darken and he immediately steps up between her legs and curls his hand behind her neck. Annie closes her eyes and tilts her head up, slides her arm around his back. But he doesn’t kiss her, just bends his head down so that his lips are close to her ear.

 

“This is a bad idea,” he whispers against her. But they’re empty words because his fingers are toying with the ties to her bikini, following their path down the bare skin at her back. She shivers and  _oh_ , arches in to him and then he’s moving and kissing her and as his tongue slides against her lips and sweeps into her mouth there’s only  _right here_  and _now_  and screw all those reasons not to. She slides her hands up under his shirt, thinking about,  _well_ , how often she’s thought about this or caught herself in a hazy fantasy of heated kisses and arms wrapped around her - so she’s tugging up and pulling the shirt over his head.

 

He pushes against her hips, sliding her back, further onto the table and smoothing his lips down the skin of her neck, down the edge of her bikini top as he pulls himself up onto the pool table with her.

 

Suddenly there’s a burst of laughter from outside. They both go still, as much as possible as they’re both short of breath and he’s close enough that she can hear his heart thumping in his chest. They hear the screen door to the patio slide open and then shut again and then Troy’s voice off in the kitchen.

 

“Jeff.”

 

“Yeah.” His head drops down. “Fuck. Yeah.”

 

He pulls back and reaches for his shirt. As he tugs it back over his head, Annie just sits there on the table feeling weirdly small and uncovered and she crosses her arms over chest.

 

Jeff looks back and something flickers over his features like he’s managed to sober up in that split second. He sighs and offers her his hand to help her down.

 

Everything’s suddenly all wrong.

 

“Annie, listen.”

 

She shakes her head, “No, it’s okay. I’m-”

 

“No. I need to say this.” He scrubs his hands over his face and takes a deep breath. “Look, I’m pretty much going to inevitably screw this up. If I haven’t already.”

 

Annie’s heart sort of leaps into her throat at “this.” This, this. It’s something.

 

“And I don’t want  _you_  to get hurt in the middle of whatever fucked up thing I’m doing.”

 

“But, maybe that won’t happen.”

 

“No. It  _will_ happen. This is why I avoid, you know…” He looks away, “All the relationship stuff. Why I’m trying things like being  _friends_  with women, not expecting more.”

 

“But you had sex with Britta.”

 

His gets this sudden deer-caught-in-headlights look, “You know about that?”

 

“Jeff.” She rolls her eyes, “ _Everyone_  knows about that.”

 

“Oh. Okay.” It takes him a second. “Well, that’s a completely different thing.”

 

“How?”

 

“It just.” Jeff looks down and she’s got a red spot at her collarbone where he lingered too long. Maybe everyone will notice and this whole thing will come crashing down on its own. He reaches out and brushes over the spot with his thumb. “Is.”

 

Her eyes flutter shut the moment he touches her so he quickly pulls back - her skin is much too soft for this being gallant thing (if that’s actually what it is) anyway. “God, Annie, I’m really drunk.”

 

She opens her eyes, “Okay.”

 

“We should probably.” Jeff steps back and nods his head toward the door.

 

Neither of them is completely sure exactly what just happened but as they join their friends back at the pool there’s this word tumbling around in the air and they both feel it.

 

_Wait._   
  



	2. Chapter 2

The first day of school has always meant new books and new pens and fresh, crisp notebooks and a blank day planner just waiting to be filled with reading assignments and essay topics and due dates. It’s seeing friends for the first time in three months and comparing tans and a fresh start with new teachers and new classmates and a new schedule.

 

It’s the first time in her entire life that Annie does not look forward to the first day of school. All those new, blank things are exciting to be sure but she doesn’t want a fresh start. She wants everything to remain the way it’s been the entire summer and now that they’re all back at Greendale the magic of the summer seems to just dissipate into thin air.

 

She feels it when she runs into Jeff in the hallway.

 

He’s texting and when he looks up and sees her he stops short.

 

“Oh. Hey. Hi. What’s up?”

 

“ _Hey. Hi. What’s up_?” She giggles but his face is sort of blank so she repeats it again and counts off her fingers.

 

“Oh.” He laughs and looks chagrined. “Yeah, before you know it I’ll be walking around barefoot, composing songs about, I don’t know, tree frogs or something.”

 

He’s not really making eye contact with her. A sense of dread hits her stomach.

 

“Jeff.”

 

“I’ve got to get to class. I’ll see you later in Anthropology, right?”

 

She nods and he takes off in the other direction, consumed again with his phone.

 

Everything’s wrong and it all rushes up at her in a wave as she stands there alone in the middle of the hallway, everyone moving around her and it’s like she’s sinking and suffocating and she’s felt this before…

 

“Please tell me you saw Chang already.”

 

Annie looks down as Britta grabs her arm and starts pulling her down the hallway.

 

“What?”

 

“You saw him right?”

 

“No. Why?”

 

“Because of this.” They reach the end of the hallway and Annie follows the direction of where Britta’s pointing. Her eyes widen.

 

Chang has apparently taken the whole “student” thing to heart because he’s wearing pants so baggy that his boxer shorts are showing, sunglasses at the back of his head and… his hair is spiked straight up with blonde frosted tips.

 

Annie gasps in shock (maybe a little awe), “When I talked about finding a new path with him, I didn’t think he would chose, whatever that is.”

 

Britta’s snickering behind her hand. “I just don’t understand why he’s dressed like a high school student from the  _90’s_.”

 

They watch as gets on his skateboard (really) and kicks off down the hallway.

 

“Well. At least he’s not our professor this year.”

 

“Yeah, maybe we’ll actually learn something.” They turn together in the opposite direction.

 

“I just hope whoever it is doesn’t try to eat my brain.”

 

~*~*~*~

 

The Anthropology professor, Brant Winthrop, does not try to eat Annie’s brain.

 

He does however decide on the first day, after she raises her hand for the third time, that he doesn’t like her. He tells her so and then proceeds to ignore her every time she says something.

 

When she gets a “C” on the first paper all hell breaks loose. A “C” to anyone else is  _hey, not too bad, I guess I’ll try harder next time_. A “C” to Annie is  _I’m going to spend the rest of my life as that girl who runs through plate glass doors and no one loves me and maybe I should just apply as the fry cook at McDonalds._ They spend two study sessions in a row trying to calm her down.

 

At the urging of her friends she goes to the professor’s office to timidly ask if there’s anything she can do to raise her grade. Britta and Shirley wait outside the door as a backup unit but they aren’t needed because Annie walks out a minute later, a little confused because he’s allowing her to rewrite the paper and he was actually sort of nice about it.

 

She rewrites it, gets an “A” and everything returns to normal.

 

No one else knows it was because this happened:

 

“Ahh. Mr. Winger, what can I do for you?” (Jeff, he loves. Jeff who has a keen eye for seeing people and understanding people and sitting in the back and not asking questions).

 

Jeff perches himself on the armrest of one of the chairs.

 

“It’s about Annie. Edison?”

 

The professor purses his lips in thought, “Edison?”

 

“Perky. Brunette. Sits in front of me. You gave her a “C” on her paper?”

 

“Ahh. The pesky know-it all.”

 

“Yeah, look, the thing is,  _you gave her a “C” on her paper_. And I think we both know that she deserves better than that.”

 

“It’s a subjective grading process Mr-“

 

Jeff leans forward, his palms pressed to the desk, “True. But again, I think we both know she deserves better than that. And  _she_ knows she deserves better than that. And now she’s  _obsessed_  to the point where we’re not getting anything done in our study group and I sort of depend on that for _my_  grade.”

 

Professor Winthrop leans back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest.

 

“Well, I’m afraid there’s not a lot I can do to change that now.”

 

“Yeaahhh. See, I think you’ll be able to find a loophole.” Jeff throws a manilla envelope onto the desk.

 

The professor goes a little pale. “What is this?”

 

“Oh. Just some memories I thought you’d like to hold onto. Maybe add to your scrapbook collection. Because, and I haven’t read the Greendale bylaws in awhile so correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure this school frowns upon teachers running illegal gambling rings.”

 

At this, Professor Winthrop stands up so fast that his chair topples over.

 

“How did you find out?”

 

“I have my sources.”

 

The professor paces the floor behind his desk then stops, rights his chair and falls into it dejectedly. “Fine. I’ll see what I can do.”

 

Jeff smiles and taps the desk before leaving. “I’m glad we can see eye to eye on this.”

 

He walks out the door and rounds the corner. Leonard is leaning against the wall, looking in the other direction but as Jeff passes he discretely presses a wad of cash into the older man’s hand.

 

A few days later Annie catches up with him in the hallway.

 

“I know what you did.” She grabs his hand. “And I just wanted to say thank you.”

 

Jeff looks mildly abashed, “How did you find out?”

 

“Professor Winthrop asked me to be  _sure_  to tell my boyfriend about the new grade. I put two and two together.”

 

“Hey. That didn’t have to be me. Could have been Pierce.”

 

Annie scrunches up her nose, “Eww. Don’t say things like that.”

 

“Sorry.”

 

“Really Jeff, thank you.”

 

Things  _have_  been off and it’s been awhile since… well, since they’ve been Jeff and Annie in the way that they had both gotten used to over the summer. But she’s clutching his hand and he’s suddenly remembering why he had enjoyed those three months so much.

 

He smiles and shrugs. “I’m sure I’ll think of something you can do to thank me later.”

 

And she’s suddenly all wide eyes and his mouth drops open because he didn’t mean it like that… but okay maybe he did.

 

Annie’s mouth relaxes into an easy smile and she releases his hand. “Okay.”

 

_Okay._

 

He nods his head down the hallway, “Buy you lunch?”

 

“Okay.” She curls her hand into the crook of his elbow and they start down the hallway. “So what did you say to him?

 

“Say? Pshaw. I didn’t have to  _say_  anything. Just went in there and gave him one of these.” He adopts his stern “lawyer” face, one eyebrow cocked. “Easy breezy.”

 

‘Hmmm.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Well. He thinks we’re dating.”

 

“Huh.” Jeff’s is acutely aware of the way his heartbeat speeds up. He tries to summon up some of that famous Jeff Winger snark but he’s not sure how to laugh this off without screwing it all up again. Annie seems to be aware of this and she speaks up quickly.

 

“Well, whatever you did. Thank you.” She beams up at him and it’s – well, she’s making it easier and easier to want to be a decent person and god, he just  _missed_  this with her.

 

“Anytime. Milady.”

 

He inclines his head towards her and he’s pretty sure he’s not imagining the way her fingers curl a little tighter against his arm.

 

~*~*~*~

 

The Dean tricks Jeff into MCing the 1st Annual Greendale Bachelor Auction.

 

No one bats an eyelash at his momentary mental breakdown (this is J _eff_ , it’s normal) when he sees his name in big bold letters on the Auction program, or when he finally relents and does it anyway with a scowl on his face - but then actually gets into it and starts animatedly shouting out things like a real auctioneer. No one puts two and two together that this only occurs after Annie doesn’t bid on anyone.

 

They also don’t know that this happened:

 

“It’s this school. This school is ridiculous and a Bachelor Auction? Really? What is this, an episode of Saved by the Bell? No. That’s what my life has become. A cheesy, 30-minute sitcom from the nineties. Any minute now Screech is going to come around the corner and the place is going erupt with the sounds of canned laughter and cheering! Just wait for it. Wait for it.”

 

People are starting to stare and Annie looks warily at them as Jeff continues to rant, his voice continuing to get louder and louder until he is practically shouting at people as they pass. Finally, she make a split second decision and with a roll of her eyes, grabs his arm and pulls him into the nearby janitor’s closet.

 

“Uh.”

 

There’s a small crate lying on the ground and Annie steps up onto it so that they’re eye level. Jeff’s eyebrows are mid-raise but she doesn’t give him a chance to say or do anything because she’s curling her arm around his neck and kissing him.

 

“Wha-“

 

“Shhh.” And she tugs him closer.

 

To his credit, he finally listens and shuts up, pulls her up close and kisses her back. It’s sort of sloppy and frantic and when she tugs back on his hair, his hand starts so slide dangerously close to the waistband of her skirt.

 

She pulls away then (before it leads to anything else and she’s on a mission so she needs to think right now) and rests her hands on his shoulders.

 

All he can do is watch her. He looks confused. He  _feels_  confused.

 

“I kind of like this. Being as tall as you for once.”

 

“Who _are_  you?”

 

She smiles and jumps off the crate, smoothes a hand through her hair. “You know, this whole auction thing might not be as bad as you think.”

 

His mind continues to circle around words like “evil” and “genius.”

 

“Who knows,” she says as they cautiously slip back into the hallway. “It might even be fun.”

 

It is.

 

Shirley bids on Sexy Dreadlocks and almost loses to one of the women in her old study group. The two women trade cutting insults that almost turn into an all-out brawl before Britta and Troy step in and calm things down.   
  
  
Pierce’s date disappears halfway through the night and no one mentions to him that she was last seen running toward the parking lot at a full sprint.   
  
  
Britta ends up bidding on Starburns in a fit of compassion because no one else is but then spends the remainder of the night trying to avoid his “come-hither” glances.   
  
  
Abed brings in the most money, by a long shot.   
  
  
Jeff, well he actually ends up enjoying the entire thing.

 

And when Annie accidentally spills her drink down the front of Shirley’s dress it’s because she’s a little bit tipsy and not because Jeff leaned down to whisper something in her ear and the touch of his breath on her neck caused her to lose function in her hands.

 

~*~*~*~

 

He slides down next to her in the cafeteria.

 

“What is all this crap?”

 

Scattered across the table are piles of forms and brochures. He picks one up that says, “University of Washington.”

 

She sighs and throws down her pen. “Applications. I’m trying to narrow down the list of schools I want to apply to.”

 

He cocks an eyebrow, “You’re thinking about going to Washington?”

 

“I don’t know. I’m making pro/con lists for every school.” She hands him a stack of papers and he thumbs through them. Under “pro” she’s listed things like,  _good journalism_   _program_  or  _good study abroad program_. On every single page, under “con”, the first thing listed is  _friends_.

 

Jeff smiles. “You know, I think you’ll probably be able to make friends wherever you end up.”

 

She shrugs, “Maybe.”

 

The bottom page of the pile is labeled “Greendale.” Under “pros” is listed:  _Jeff, Britta, Shirley, Abed, Troy, Pierce._ Under cons it says,  _Greendale_.

 

“You’re thinking about staying?”

 

“I don’t know. Maybe… I don’t know why I’ve always assumed that I need to leave. Everyone else is staying.”

 

He just looks at her so she sighs and continues, “I guess I never expected to actually feel  _content_  here.”

 

“Hmm.” Jeff thinks about it and then huffs out a little laugh, “Yeah, me neither.”

 

“So, what do you think I should do?”

 

He looks over the table at the pile of brochures and picks one up for the University of Boulder. On the front is a picture of three students, arms full of books, strolling though a pristine walkway lined with trees and vibrantly hued flowers. “Annie, I can’t tell you what to do. But…you are  _always_  going to be better than Greendale.”

 

Her lips turn up into a crooked smile but her eyes are starting to pool with tears. Jeff can absolutely not deal with that.

 

“We’re not going to just stop being friends because you might leave. This isn’t like.” He looks up and around at the people milling around the cafeteria. “Like all those assholes that have disappointed you before.”

 

She looks up at him and swallows, thinks about  _everything_  from the last year and a half. “I know.”

 

“And you know. Abed and Troy have been talking about doing some kind of road trip or something, so wherever you end up, you know  _someone_  will be invading your life like every other weekend. And you’ll be at a _real_  college… We’ll be the ones envying you.”

 

Annie nods and he hands her the brochure. “It’s pretty isn’t it?” she says, running her fingers along the picture.

 

“Yeah.” He’s watching her carefully as she leans her head down and briefly rests it against his shoulder before tilting back up and smiling.

 

“Thank you.”

 

~*~*~*~

 

They’re pulling another all-nighter in the study room to prepare for the final. It’s two o’clock in the morning and everyone else has gone off in search of food while Annie and Jeff sit close, pouring over the same text book.

 

“I’m not going to lie. I’ve read the same sentence about four times in a row.”

 

Annie just answers with a stifled yawn so Jeff laughs and flips the book closed.

 

“Jeff we have to know that.”

 

“Yeah and we’re not going to know it.”

 

“Jeff!” There's panic in her voice.

 

“We need to take a break. You can read that until you’re blue in the face but we’re not going to learn it if we’re practically falling asleep on the table.”

 

Annie flops back against her chair and Jeff smirks.

 

“Has anyone ever told you that you need to unwind a little? Or  _a lot_?”

 

She narrows her eyes, “Yes. You. About an hour ago.”

 

“Well, listen to my wise and sage advice. Take a deep breath. Chill out.”

 

“Ooohh, like Jeff Winger is so calm and collected all the time.”

 

“I resent what you’re implying.”

 

“I’m not  _implying_  anything.” She leans forward, “I’m flat out saying it Jeff. You’re a short circuit that’s ready to blow at any moment. Everyone knows this.”

 

“Not tr-”

 

“Pottery class. Obnoxious teenagers _. Shorts_.”

 

“Hey no one was complaining about the outcome of the shorts incident at the time.”

 

“That’s irrelevant to the point I’m trying to make.

 

“So you liked the shorts? Or lack thereof?”

 

“That’s not the  _point_!” she laughs.

 

“And what was the point again?”

 

He leans forward, smiling and she leans closer and then… she’s pressing her lips to his and he’s kissing her back. It's this chaste, almost nothing kiss, that came out of nowhere but the tips of her fingers are buzzing and he feels an odd tumbling deep in his chest.

 

As they pull back slowly she’s blushing and his eyes are on her lips. Finally, he clears his throat and looks around the room.

 

“Well.”

 

Annie lets out a nervous laugh so he turns back to her and bumps his shoulder into hers, “So. The Neolithic Revolution.”

 

“Yes.” She opens to the correct chapter again, biting her lip as she tries not to smile too brightly. It really can’t be helped though because as she brings her hand up to rest at the top corner of the book (to turn the page if they actually get past this current paragraph) he’s doing the same and somehow his hand just ends up resting over hers, his thumb pressed into her palm.

 

He only pulls away when they hear the voices of their friends coming down the hall.

 

~*~*~*~

 

If Jeff and Annie seem extra jumpy or distracted lately it’s only because  _everyone’s_  distracted and worried about finals. Britta’s started smoking again and Shirley’s developed an eye twitch and Pierce falls asleep in class every day so a little unusual behavior really isn’t all that unusual.

 

Annie’s high pitched giggle when Pierce mentions Jeff’s sex life is only because she’s  _Annie_  and she’s repressed and someone said a “whisper word” in her presence.

 

Jeff’s  _get me the hell out of here_  face when Shirley starts talking about the “inappropriate” relationship an older gentleman at her church is having with a twenty year old is just – well, it’s  _Jeff_ and he makes that face a lot and no one bothers noticing it anymore.

 

~*~*~*~

 

 

“You should ask me out.”

 

“Um. What?” Jeff scans the crowded hallway above Annie’s head. When he looks back down to meet her eyes she squares her jaw and lets out a little huff, her hands on her hips.

 

“On a date. You should ask me out on a date.”

 

“Okay, hold-“ He pulls her by the arm into the less crowded hallway leading to the pottery room. “Annie, I don’t think-“

 

“Je-efff!” She somehow manages to drag his name out into about four syllables.

 

He raises an eyebrow and looks down at the floor, “Did you really just stomp your foot? Because, I’m sorry but this isn’t one of those times where you can bat your eyelashes and be formidable and just expect that I’m going to cave to your folly.”

 

“Folly? Please. I think we both know that this isn’t just some kind of misguided whim I had the second I saw you in the hallway.”

 

Despite himself, Jeff smiles, hugs his books to his chest and leans his shoulder into the wall.

 

“Do you have evidence to back up this claim?”

 

Annie’s eyes brighten, “I do.” She moves to reach into her backpack but Jeff stills her hand.

“Please don’t tell me you made a list.”

 

“I made a list.”

 

“Annie.” There’s a hint of laughter in his voice. “Look, I’m not a ‘hey, would you like to go out with me on Friday night and I’ll pick you up at your house and buy you a fancy Italian dinner and take you to a Jennifer Aniston movie’ kind of guy.”

 

She rolls her eyes but then takes a step closer, “Could you make an exception for me?”

 

His eyes roam over her face, tracing the line of her lips and then back up to meet her gaze. He inhales. “Okay, what’s on the list?”

 

“Um.” It takes her a moment to collect her thoughts. “I. Like spending time with you.” She shakes it off and pulls herself up taller. “And you like spending time with me.”

“Do I?” He’s suddenly towering over her and it’s like he enjoys the way he can move into her space and just send everything else spinning away. And maybe she enjoys it too.

 

Her eyebrows go up and there’s a hint of mischievousness there. “Yes.”

 

Jeff can’t help the full on grin that spreads across his face. He pushes away from the wall.

 

“Okay.”

 

“Okay?”

 

“I’ll ask you out.”

 

She smiles in triumph but then he’s walking away. “Wait. When? Jeff?”

 

He disappears around the corner and she stares after him in confusion (confusion that quickly changes to annoyance).

 

“Ughh! Jeff!”

 

~*~*~*~  
  


He finally asks her three days later, on the day she gets her acceptance to Boulder.

 

He doesn’t meet her at her house, she meets him at his and then they drive two towns over for dinner. It’s Mexican, not Italian but he pays the check. And it’s not a Jennifer Aniston movie but when Jeff’s hand slides against hers and their fingers intertwine, she really doesn’t care because watching some stupid action flick while holding Jeff Winger’s hand is infinitely better than any romantic comedy she’s ever seen.

 

When they drive back into town the oldies station is playing softly, some Van Morrison song, and the lights of the city whirl by in a colorful haze. It’s all a little sneaky and complicated but if they’re going to navigate this thing, then they need to do it alone and not under the watchful eye of the study group (and of course they would have something to say about it too). So for now…

 

They stand at her car and it’s all very high school first date and  _aw shucks_  until he just cups her face in his hands and kisses her and she rises up on her toes to meet him.

 


	3. Chapter 3

They’ve kissed five times.  Annie knows this. She remembers each one, how they were all different. How they all made her  _feel_ different. How after each one, she’s almost afraid that it will be the last one and she has to hold on to it and the taste of his tongue and the touch of his hands and the press of his body against hers.

 

He calls her the Sunday after the first date.

 

"What are you doing?”

 

“Studying.”

 

“Of course… Hey so, do you want to come over? I’m just hanging out here watching TV. I mean, unless you have to _study_. But, you could do that here too. If you wanted. I don’t know.”

 

“No.” she says quickly. “I can. Yeah, I can come over.”

 

It takes her twenty minutes to figure out what to wear and she changes her mind five times before settling on jeans and a tee-shirt. She leaves her hair down and loose around her shoulders, brushes her teeth before grabbing her purse and running out to the car.

 

She feels nervous as she knocks at his door and when he opens it he _looks_  nervous and tentative and she suddenly remembers that she’s never been in his apartment. It’s like there’s this whole new side of him opening up to her and she wants to run headfirst into it, but once she does, everything changes.

 

They sit on the couch and he’s been watching a Back to the Future marathon so they just continue to watch that, not really saying anything to each other until finally,  _finally_  after five minutes of heightened nerves that are making her feel ill, Jeff says, “Annie?” and when she turns to look at him he leans over and kisses her.

 

When he pulls away he smiles and tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She bites her lip and thinks “six” and then somehow ends up nestled under his arm. By the time she leaves a few hours later, she’s calm like everything has finally settled into place and when he kisses her at the door she’s not even sure what number to think of.

 

They go out again on Wednesday night and it’s a spur of the moment thing. She’s getting in her car at the end of the day when he calls her. He’s thinking about going to that Chinese restaurant around the corner and does she want to join him? It’s a little risky because it’s right near school but if anyone sees them they can just say they were both hungry after class, or something. She doesn’t think about it.

 

They’re at the restaurant for almost two hours and don’t run into anyone they know and honestly, they probably wouldn’t have noticed even if they did.

 

Annie’s lying in bed later, staring at the ceiling and clutching her phone to her chest and she can’t possibly sleep. She’s thinking of how she’s already lost count of kisses and the way he argued with her when she tried to pay part of the bill and how he threw his arm over her shoulders when they walked out to the parking lot.

 

She’s  _still_  thinking of these things when she slips out of bed, slides on a pair of shoes and grabs her purse.

 

It’s 11:45 and maybe he’s already sleeping and it’s probably a bad idea… but when he opens the door he’s still fully dressed and she can see past him into his living room where there are open text books and notebooks strewn across the coffee table.

 

He squints at her, takes in her sweatshirt and plaid pajamas. “Annie?”

 

“I couldn’t sleep.”

 

“Did you try?” He’s smiling.

 

“Yeessss.”

 

She doesn’t say anything else, just looks up at him through her eyelashes until he laughs and tugs on her hand to pull her into the apartment.

 

~*~*~*~

 

When she tilts her head back she can see the clock on the bedside table glaring a bright red 1:52

 

“It’s really late,” she murmurs and shifts, stretching her legs out across the bed.

 

“Mmm hmmm.” Jeff brushes his lips against her hip. “Do you have somewhere to be?”

 

Her laugh comes out more like a breathy sigh. “In the morning. I have class at 9:00.”

 

“Annie.” His hands and lips trail a path back up her body until he’s braced above her, “This, right here? Not the right time to talk about school. Besides,” He drops a kiss to her forehead, then her hairline, then lower at the corner of her eye, “I  _was_  studying before you came over and distracted me.”  _Tip of her nose. Cheek. Jaw line. Corner of her mouth_. When he finally reaches her lips again he kisses her deeply until she’s sighing and flattening her hand against his lower back, arching against him.

 

Jeff groans, pulls back and brushes a few wayward strands of her hair off her forehead. He searches her face carefully.

 

“You are ridiculously gorgeous. You know that right?”

 

Annie flushes and turns her head into the comforter. His words send a jolt of pleasure through her body. Two hours of _this_ , being on his bed and slowly peeling away clothing and touching, exploring each other and… it’s made everything feel all warm and languid, like floating over water in the summer sun.

 

She finally looks back up at him.

 

He clears his throat, then wets his lips and takes a deep breath. “I. Umm.” And he shakes his head like he’s not sure how or what he wants to say so she takes a cue, or rather gives him a cue, and bends one of her knees up to press against his hip.

 

Jeff smiles slowly and dips down to kiss her again as he reaches back and begins trailing his hand down her thigh.

 

Suddenly she remembers something, gasps and sits straight up, sending him flying backwards.

 

“Jeff, that’s right, you have a psychology test tomorrow.”

 

He looks a little stunned at the sudden shift but then laughs and leans back on his hands, “Yeah, but again. Half naked girl in my bed trumps anything related to school. Actually half naked girl trumps everything, so.” He cocks an eyebrow to make his point, then pulls her toward him, up on her knees so that she’s straddling his hips. Annie settles against him and rests her hands on his chest.

 

“You should be studying,” she whispers.

 

“Oh. I am.”

 

She eyes him skeptically so he tugs her up closer.

 

“And I’m learning a lot. See, I’ve learned that when I do this.” He presses his lips to the spot under her ear and sucks lightly on the skin there. Annie lets out a little choking gasp and he smiles. “You make that noise. And I’ve learned that I  _really_  like that noise. And when I do this.” His hand flutters down her side and she yelps and tries to wiggle away. “It makes you do that.”

 

“Well, it tickles.”

 

Jeff raises an eyebrow. “And then of course.” His hand dips slower still, skirting under the line of her underwear and Annie arches, drops her forehead to the crook his neck. “Jeff,” she whimpers against him.

 

“See. I’m a fast learner.”

 

“Huh hmmm.”

 

Jeff presses his free hand flat against her back, bracing her as she rocks against him. She’s got her mouth pressed against the side of his neck, making these little gasping noises against his skin as she clutches at his arms.

 

“Jeff… I want…” She takes a shuddering breath and shifts, presses her forehead against his. They are both warm with perspiration. Jeff breathes in, cursing mentally when it’s shakier than normal.

 

“Annie?”

 

She pauses, just for the briefest moment before nodding and pressing up on her knees, sliding backwards and pulling him with her until he's settled above her again. Her hands are shaking slightly as she touches her fingers to his cheek and Jeff turns his head to kiss her palm, then threads his fingers through hers and pins her hand to the mattress above her head. As his other hand slides down and hooks into the waistband of her panties Annie has to choke back a shudder.  
  
  
He gazes down at her, his eyes dark, a hint of a smirk playing across his features and she almost laughs before his mouth is on hers again, hard and urgent in a way that makes everything else go spinning off into a mindless haze.  
  
  
~*~*~*~

 

Later, afterwards, she’s curled against him, his fingers trailing up and down her arm and they’re both floating, drifting in this cloud of contentment.

 

“I’m glad I came over.”

 

“Um.  _Yeah_.”

 

Annie turns a little and he shifts with her, brushes his nose against her shoulder as their eyes meet.

 

“Jeff?” She bites her lip and he’s quickly trying to pull himself together for whatever she’s about to say.

 

But then:

 

“Are you sure you’re ready for your test tomorrow?”

 

He stares at her for a second then slowly shakes his head, “Please tell me that’s not what you’ve been thinking about this entire time.”

 

“Nooo. But.”

 

“Alright, that’s it. New rule. No talking about school, or school  _work_  or class or anything Greendale related while we’re in bed.”

 

“But.”

 

“No,” he growls at her and then rolls so that he’s back above her. She tries to say something again so he kisses her and she just ends up sighing, and then moaning against his mouth.

 

The next day, Annie misses her first class and when Shirley asks, with concern in her voice, if everything is okay, she turns bright red and mumbles something about sleeping through her alarm.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Jeff sends her a text message in the middle of study group one day that says,

 

“make you dinner if we can leave early?”

 

Her eyes carefully flicker around the table before landing on him and he’s focused on his book but she can read him well enough by now to know that he’s not really reading and that his lips are pressed together to keep them from quirking up in a smile.

 

It goes against everything she knows but she’s biting the inside of her lip as she types back.

 

“chicken marsala?”

 

She stares intently at a spot in her book but out of the corner of her eye she sees the LED light flicker on Jeff’s phone and the way he casually looks over and presses the button to read the new text.

 

A moment later her phone buzzes in her hand.

 

“of course.”

 

She smiles, is about to type a response when:

 

“Annie, this is frying my brain. Please, please help me with number six.”

 

“What?” Her head pops up and she looks around the table. “Huh?”

 

Britta stares back in amusement, “Number six?”

 

“Oh. Um.” She looks down at her notebook, where she’s only gotten as far as number four.

 

Now everyone is staring at her and Shirley looks down to see the phone clutched in her lap.

 

“Ohhh.” Her eyes almost twinkle in merriment. “Annie, are you being distracted by a special someone?”

 

“What? No. No.” She looks around the table. Jeff’s resting his chin on his hand, watching her with the same look of puzzlement as everyone else, except she knows now, she knows that really, he’s laughing inside and she is absolutely going to kill him later.

 

“Is it… Vaughan?”

 

Suddenly, maybe Jeff is no longer laughing inside.

 

“No.” Annie throws her hands up in the air,  “How many times to I have to tell you guys?”  
  


Vaughan’s semi-pro-community-college hackey-sack career had come to a disappointing end when he had been walking barefoot around campus, stepped on a bee, had an allergic reaction, developed staff infection and ended up in the hospital for two weeks. Now he was back and everyone had cooked up the conspiracy theory that he and Annie had started their relationship up again. It certainly explained moments like this.

 

And if anyone notices the way Jeff’s jaw tenses whenever anyone talks about this possibility, they don’t say anything because, well, Jeff  _never_  liked Vaughan.

 

(Concurrently, they didn’t question Annie’s “Ughh” when she realized she had to take Statistics. Mainly because Britta echoed the sentiment and  _no one_  likes Professor Slater.)

 

It takes about five minutes to convince the group that she’s not carrying on an illicit text messaging affair with Vaughan even though, yes, it is nice that he wears shoes now.

 

Jeff’s only contribution is a muttered, “Tevas aren’t shoes.”

 

Later on when she’s sitting on his kitchen counter watching him make dinner she sets a new rule: no texting during school hours.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Some times the whole secret relationship is kind of fun.

 

Like when they walk toward the back of the group, his fingers dancing along the back of her hand every time their arms bump against each other and the way she ducks her head and looks in the other direction to avoid his smirk. Or how Jeff gets caught staring blankly into space during class and this isn’t exactly a new thing so no one even stops to think that it could possibly be because Annie answered a question and used the word “sex” (and she said it in a normal voice but her face still turned pink) and now all he can think about are all those  _other_  things that make her blush.

 

Sometimes they forget or don’t care enough to be quite as careful but the group is sitting at lunch laughing and they fail to notice that Jeff hasn’t come back from the bathroom and that Annie hasn’t joined them from class yet.

 

But Annie stays late in class finishing up notes all the time and Jeff’s probably powdering his nose (thanks Pierce) so…

 

… later in the study room they don’t notice that Annie’s hair is no longer held back in clips or that the bottom of Jeff’s shirt is missing a button.

 

But they’re still Jeff and Annie and he’s still perfectly capable of being an asshole and she’s still hypersensitive and sometimes it drives them to fight in his apartment and it spills over into the next day and no one understands why she snaps at him for not understanding a concept from the chapter they’re studying or why he completely ignores her and turns to Britta for help.

 

Later, he’s waiting outside her classroom and pulls her aside into a quiet corner where they both apologize and don’t even scan the hallways before he wraps her up in a hug.

 

When Abed calls Jeff at dawn the next morning (he and Troy watched all twelve hours of the Star Wars saga and now they’re acting out key scenes and they need someone who can fit into the Princess Leia bikini) and he answers with a whispered, “What in the name of all that is good in this world could possibly make you call me right now?” no one would even think to imagine that Annie would be sound asleep behind him, her nose pressed into his back, her fingers curled loosely into the dip of his hip.

 

~*~*~*~

 

“I tried setting Jeff up with my friend from yoga but he said he wasn’t interested.”

 

“It is weird that that boy doesn’t seem to be dating as much lately. Do you think it’s because he has another secret girlfriend?” Shirley asks with a wiggle of her eyebrows.

 

Pierce laughs, “Maybe it's because-”

 

“Pierce! Jeff is not gay. Get off it.”

 

“Well Britta, it does take one to not know one, right?” Pierce rolls his eyes at Troy while pointing his thumb in Britta’s direction. “What I was going to say was that Jeff’s not dating anyone because he’s too busy banging Perky Boobs.”

 

Britta and Shirley both immediately look down at their own chests. Then they look up at each other and Pierce lets out another snort, “Please. Like that would be either of you.”

 

They both turn and look at him in disgust as Abed breaths out the name “Annie.”

 

Everyone starts to scoff at this for a second but then they all stop and stare at each other.

 

“Pierce. That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” But Britta doesn’t seem very convinced by her own words. Shirley looks like she’s concentrating, trying to remember something.

 

Troy looks awed suddenly. “They don’t spend as much time together as they used to.”

 

“Guys look.”

 

Britta points across the quad where Annie and Jeff have just emerged from the library.

 

Everyone tilts their head in the same direction as they watch the pair interact. Annie’s waving her arms animatedly as she tells him a story. He throws back his head and laughs and launches into some tale of his own, gesturing wildly while Annie smiles up at him.

 

“So?”

 

“Shh. Just keep-”

 

And then Jeff stops talking and looks around and Annie freezes, her eyes wide. They both say something, then immediately turned around and walk in opposite directions.

 

“Ohhhh.”

 

They all look at each other again.

 

“Huh. Maybe.”

 

~*~*~*~

 

Annie and Jeff had been careful.

 

But when it started to slide away from scary and new into something more familiar it became significantly harder to hide from everyone. When they were still nervous and jumpy and trying to kill each other with sexual tension it had been easy to brush off as just weird quirks of who they already were.

 

But when he slid down next to her at lunch she just immediately wanted to relax against him. And when she was hyperventilating that one of the classes she needed for transfer was full she  _almost_ turned into him and he  _almost_ curled his arm around her waist and  _almost_  leaned down to brush his lips against her temple.

 

So they had to keep setting new rules and pretty soon they could hardly look at each other at school because they were afraid that someone would see it and just  _know._

 

And yet, it’s only when the side-glances and the touches and the secret text messages stopped, that someone finally noticed something. Like all those things had been there all along and their presence was so familiar that no one saw it, but once it was gone every thing seemed weird and wrong like a wind had changed.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Annie works late at the newspaper office and falls asleep at her desk, her head pillowed on her arms. She wakes up to a touch on her shoulder and the sound of someone saying her name.

 

“Annie.”

 

“Hmm.” Her head pops up and Jeff’s peering down at her in amusement. She blinks at him a couple times. “What?”

 

“Come on Ace. It’s almost 11:30. Let’s get you home.”

 

She rubs her fists into her eyes, smearing her mascara in the process, “I’m not done.”

 

“Well that’s too bad. You can finish tomorrow. You’re exhausted.”

 

She wants to argue but her mind’s still sort of foggy and Jeff’s already shoving all her stuff into her backpack. He shuts off the lights and she leans on him a little bit as he leads her out into the hallway.

 

“I’m writing about the rash of burglaries around campus over the past few months.”

 

“Riveting.”

 

“It is.” She yawns. “Someone’s been breaking into the faculty offices. Professor Duncan’s bust of the queen was stolen, so was Professor Whitman’s Hula-Hoop.”

 

“Wow. Someone’s really hitting those guys where it hurts.”

 

“I know! It’s terrible. So I’m gonna find out who it is and nail him to the wall.”

 

“You know it’s probably just some stupid prank right?”

 

“Justice must be served Jeff. And I’m going to be the one that makes sure it gets served. On a silver platter.” They’ve reached his car, the only one left in the deserted parking lot.

 

He laughs at the intensity in her voice, presses her up against the passenger door and whispers, “And that’s why I love you.”

 

She giggles as he leans down to kiss her and as his lips start to slide down her jaw line she breathes out a tiny, “I love you too” and her hands tighten around his waist.

 

Jeff stills, presses a kiss to the side of her neck and pulls back to look at her. She just nods and ducks her head into his shoulder shyly. He pulls her back in, arms wrapped around her completely.   
  
  
"Yeah," he whispers.  
  
  
And smiles.  
  


~*~*~*~

 

He falls silent and looks around the table.

They all stare back.

 

“So. That’s… what we wanted to tell you.” His eyebrows are knit together in confusion.

 

Annie’s at his side, tense, like she’s expecting some kind of verbal assault to be unleashed at any moment. Jeff looks at her then back at the group.

 

“You guys are really going to say nothing about this?”

 

“Oh.” They all start to murmur, darting glances at each other, avoiding looking in the direction of either Jeff or Annie.

 

“Oh Jeff, how could you? I’m very disappointed in you for violating poor Annie like this,” Shirley says in monotone.

 

“Yeah. It’s disgusting. How horrifying. You should be ashamed. Pervert.”

 

“Insert pop culture reference here.”

 

Jeff purses his lips together. He and Annie share another glance. She looks a little dumbfounded.

 

“You guys knew.”

 

“Yeaaahhh.”

 

“Uh-huh.”

 

“Yup.”

 

Pierce laughs, “You two weren’t nearly as clever as you thought you were. Couldn’t fool us. I’ve got a keen eye for this kind of stuff. I’ve known you guys were knocking boots for weeks now.”

 

Annie makes a strangled coughing noise and Jeff kicks her leg under the table.

 

“Weeks, right. So.” He leans forward. “None of you  _said_  anything?”

 

“We were just waiting for you two to fess up. But for the record, I’m still not sure I’m okay with it,” Shirley says plainly.

 

“And we’re a little insulted that you didn’t tell us earlier.”

 

“I’m disappointed in myself actually. I should have known. There were plenty of signs.” Abed tilts his head and regards them in thought. Jeff makes a mental note to put his foot down to any sort of Newlyweds type reality show that Abed will inevitably dream up.

 

“Okay. So. Good.” He smiles over at Annie because everything they had spent all night worrying about hadn’t actually happened and maybe this will actually just be as simple as, everyone knows and now they can just move on.

 

Annie smiles back and covers his hand with hers.

 

Everyone groans.

 

“Do you have to do that here? We s _tudy_  here.”

 

“Seriously guys, maybe you should slow this thing down a little."

 

Okay, so maybe it will take a _little_  more time.


End file.
